‘Luckiest person’ at the race track loves her job

Connie Broge hands flowers to race winners in the Winner's Circle at the Del Mar Racetrack. (Photo courtesy of the Del Mar Village Voice.)

Connie Broge considers herself the luckiest employee at Del Mar. With an official title of Winner’s Circle Coordinator, she is the person everyone sees presenting roses to the owners in the Winner’s Circle at the end of each race.

Securing that post, however, came with a history which started as a PTA mom in Arcadia where she, together with other PTA mom volunteers, began conducting tours for the local school children through the historic track located there.

What started as a two mornings per week volunteer effort morphed into a community relations/hospitality position, where for two morning per week, including weekends, she conducted Santa Anita’s highly regarded tours of the back side, paddock gardens, the track’s history, the art work and the history of thoroughbred racing.

Eventually they developed a program where during the racing season every third grader in the school district participated in a morning visit to Santa Anita. “We answered all their questions, which ranged from ‘How many teeth does a horse have?,’ to how thoroughbred racing originated,” says Broge.

From there she moved to the Turf Club for several years, then group sales, ending her tenure at Santa Anita in 2002.

It was her involvement with Del Mar’s philanthropic “Night of Champions” effort that brought her the opportunity for the post she now holds at Del Mar.

Each day she receives bouquets of long stemmed roses supplied by Flowers by Adelaide in La Jolla. Del Mar is the only track in Southern California which presents flowers, which is considered by many to be a historical sign of class.

There is etiquette to the rose selection, with winners of stakes races receiving long stemmed reds.

The florist, however, delivers a palette of colors for the other races. “In choosing which color rose to take to a particular race I try to keep in mind what the owners in the upcoming race have previously won. Some owners are very partial to one color, so if I see that they have a horse running in a particular race, I try to remember to bring that color rose just in case they win. They appreciate that,” says Broge.

In addition to the roses, winners also receive a bottle of Korbel Champagne. Winners of stakes races also receive a Steuben crystal bowl trophy which has been especially made and engraved with the name of that particular stakes race at Del Mar. The crowd can see Broge carrying the large signature grey boxes containing the crystal bowls to the Winner’s Circle prior to each stakes race. After the race is won the Steuben Glass Company, located in Corning, New York, manufactures a marble base for the trophy containing the owner’s name and the name of the horse.
Always appearing glamorous, Broge says she was offered the opportunity to wear a uniform, but prefers wearing her own clothes.

“I just want people to know how much I enjoy being here and seeing the crowd of smiling faces,” says the flower lady.

“You know,” says Broge, “no one ever walks into the Winner’s Circle and says ‘darn it, my horse won again.’ Everyone who enters that Winner’s Circle is happy, elated, thrilled that their dream has come true, and I get to be the first one to see that look on their faces. That makes me the luckiest person at this race track to have this job.”

Broge lives in the Arcadia area and is the mother of two children, with two grandchildren and one more on the way. In the off-season she can often be found working as an extra in movie productions; she landed her first speaking role in this summer’s hit movie “The Hangover.”

Helen and Richard Nielsen-Eckfield work as ushers at the Del Mar races. Now retired, he is a former city manager and adjunct college professor; she was co-owner of Carlsbad Ranch Market, a produce market in Carlsbad. They write a Savvy Seniors column the Del Mar Village Voice, where this story originally appeared.

Tags: Connie Borge, Del Mar races, Del Mar Racetrack, horse races, horse racing, Night of Champions, SDNN, Winner's Circle

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 at 10:34 am and is filed under Arts & Entertainment, Lifestyle, News, Travel, Visitors Guide. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.